DIY: Carpeting Spiral Stairs

Remember a while back when I bought this rug to use as a runner on our black stairs? I never quite got around to doing the project, so all the little Jaipur runners I got from RugsUSA have been just sitting in a closet, waiting to be used.

Part of the problem was I have been on the fence for months about whether or not I wanted to use a pattern (even a relatively subtle, neutral one) on my main stairs. I'm thinking of maybe doing a simple sisal in there instead. The spiral stairs in the mudroom needed carpeting too though, so it seemed like a good idea to use the runners in there instead, while I figured something else out for the entry stairs. Here's a reminder of how the stairs up to my studio looked when we moved in:

Since moving in, we've painted the tile floors a dark gray and paneled the walls and painted them navy. We also pulled off the carpeting on the stairs and painted the rails and treads bright white.

We had painted the treads the same color as the rail, but they were noisy and less safe-feeling without the carpeting. I was really excited to finally get these covered last week!

I picked up a quart of flooring glue at the hardware store and spread an even coat on the top of the tread before flipping it over on to the carpet runner.

It was important to be consistent with my pattern placement, so I lined up the tread in the same place every time before cutting.

I used a pair of super heavy-duty shears from Home Depot in the tool section to cut the runners. It made a world of difference to have the extra long, extra sharp blades.

I cut the runner to be just wide enough to cover the sides of the treads. I also cut out the corners, so when I folded up the edges, there would be no extra material in the corners.

After adding more glue to the edges, I stapled the sides in place and then trimmed away any extra rug material.

After letting the glue dry a bit, I popped the treads back into the stairs. I LOVE how they look and feel now!

The rug pattern was double sided, but I went with the darker side up and hopefully that will help to hide traffic stains. I'm also thinking about Scotchgarding the treads this week as a precautionary measure.

I love how the subtle pattern looks with the wall and floor colors. I hung a few new pieces of art and added a bougainvillea tree that I planted in a brass trash bin. :)

I also upholstered a little thrifted bench to tuck under the stairs. I love all the textures together!

It took several hours to upholster the treads (most of the time was spent cutting), but I'm so happy with how this project turned out. It makes me want to figure out a runner for our front entry stairs right away!

PS I popped over to RugsUSA today to try and find the link to the Jaipur runners and saw they're having a great 75% off sale for Cyber Monday. I'm looking for a small-ish rug for our nursery (!) and I think there are some really cute contenders here. They've added a ton of great rug lines since the last time I shopped their site. It also looks like they've figured out how to take better photos of their rugs too - now you can zoom in tight and see the weave and get a way better sense of the colors. Good stuff.

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DIY: Fabric Painting with Dye on Drop Cloths

I am excited to experiment with this technique more (I know there's a lot I need to still figure out), but I'm pretty happy with how the fabric painting/dyeing technique worked out with the drop clothes I used for our mudroom makeover. I wanted this project to be as inexpensive as possible, but I didn't want to just use some fabric I had laying around. I wanted it to be kid-friendly and playful.

I used a few bottles of liquid RIT I had laying around in Apple Green, Lemon Yellow, Denim and Rose Pink, and then diluted them down a bit with water. The main leaf color is Denim, which is sort of a purpley-black-indigo.

But first, I cut out all the pieces I needed to make the three box cushions before I started (and I included generous seam allowances just in case the fabric shrunk after washing, which it did). To make sure all the patterns would match right and would wrap down the edges, I careful marked out all the center spots of the X pattern.

I used different sizes of brushes to apply the patterns, which I wanted to all feel organic (leaves and insects in abstract patterns). I used a 1" foam brush to do the main pattern and I love it the most. I want to do a whole room of curtains in just this pattern!

The girls wanted to help and I wanted more color in the pattern, so we kept going with colors and shapes. We added really loose versions of bees and dragonflies and just some circles for splashes of color.

I love how the fabric looked at this point and part of me wishes we would have stopped here, but I didn't know what would happen to the dye if we didn't set it. I figured it would be disastrous if (when?) watered spilled on the fabric, so I threw it all in the washer on cold and delicate. I wish I would have hand washed them all, which I think would have left the background a little more cream and less blue and maybe would have left a little more color in the pattern.

The soft dreaminess is still nice though and I wasn't about to redo all my and the girls' hard work, se we just went with it. :)

I think the white piping helps brighten things up a little.

Any tips on setting dye without washing it all out? I can't wait to try round two of fabric painting!

Back-to-School Make Over for the Mudroom!

I really wanted to finish up our mudroom space before school started this year, and we made it, just under the wire! I was really excited to get to team up with Amana again on this project. You might remember that one of the first projects we tackled in our house after moving here was paneling in the mudroom. We held off on paneling the closet walls, just because there was a lot of work to do there first.

This was my rough plan for each of the cubby nooks:

I really wanted the nooks to be flush on the sides and tops, and I wanted to add some benches. So last month, I hired my handyman to come in and prep the closet spaces and then Kate and I installed and painted the paneling, just like in this tutorial. It's really not hard to do, it's just a little time-consuming.

The basic idea is we used inexpensive sheets of hardboard cut down at the hardware store to make shiplapping on the walls. The paint color is Benjamin Moore's Day's End in a flat finish.

I wanted the girls to each have a nook space of their own, complete with a bench and a high shelf for paperwork storage.

To help keep the floors in my house clean and to make it easier for the kids to get ready for school, we made separate nooks for jute shoe baskets. One is for casual shoes and the other is for dress shoes! It was a little tricky to find baskets that fit the nooks just right. These two were contenders from Homegoods, but the sizing was a little off and they were pricey (not to mention, I would have had to drive all around Phoenix to find six matching baskets).

And then I totally hit the jackpot at World Market with these Jessica baskets. They were 50% off, which made them only $12.50 each! They're made of really thick jute and so far they're holding up beautifully!

For the bench tops, I made a bench cushion using upholstery foam that I cut to fit the nooks. I made the fabric with drop clothes and fabric dye before sewing them into box cushions. My girls helped me with parts of the fabric painting, which made them so proud! They love getting to display their work in each of their cubbies!

The hooks ended up being a bit different from what I had initially envisioned (with a vertical row of hooks), but I'm so happy with these. I spray painted simple hooks from Target a bright acid yellow, which I think really pops against the navy paneling, and epoxied wooden craft balls to the ends to give each of the hooks a sort of Eames feel. 

I think the more hooks in a utility space, the better! The original vertical hanging idea would have been awkward anyway - things would have been stacked on top of each other. We keep all sorts of things on these hooks, from the obvious, like backpacks and lunch bags, down to swim goggles and binoculars! :) These hooks are doing wonders for my sanity - it's so easy for the kids to hang up their stuff now.

On the top shelf of each nook, I added labeled storage boxes that say either Artwork or School Work. My girls come home from school with adorable projects and work all year long and I love the idea of having an easily accessible place to store the most special of these keepsakes!

At the back of each nook, we installed a magnetic chalkboard for tacking up notes and writing messages! I made my own white chalkboard paint with latex paint and non-sanded grout and painted it on to a sheet of galvanized metal from the hardware store. We glued these sheets up to the drywall and paneled around them. It is wonderful for the girls to have a spot to leave each other and themselves messages every day! 

I dressed up super simple ceramic magnet circles and dollar store alphabet letter magnets by spray painting them all with gold spray paint! Making them all a uniform color makes them feel special and less cheesy. The little cupcakes are containers filled with chalk for the girls. We epoxied magnets to the cupcakes so they can stay up on the chalkboards.

Across from our cubby nooks, we made our after-school-snack pantry extra pretty by painting it a bright, poppy red. Inside we have snacks for my kids (and any of the neighborhood kids that stop by!), including fruit leather and granola bars, and snack-sized microwave popcorn (my girls favorite!). We actually keep our Amana microwave in this pantry, which makes popcorn an even easier snack!

I'm so happy with our (finally finished!) mudroom. It has made the back-to-school transition so easy and organized. I'd love to hear what things you're doing to help make back-to-school easier on you and your kids!

This post was a collaboration with Amana, a wonderful, eco-friendly company devoted to making life easier on families, one appliance at a time! :)